


Self-reflection's For Pussies and David Hewlett

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Stargate Atlantis RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:33:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1629299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe Flannigan thinks acting is a job. He hasn't thought too deeply about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-reflection's For Pussies and David Hewlett

**Author's Note:**

> I had several betas and people who I just forced to read this and nod. To Anna, Gina, Allie, and anyone else I just missed, I love ya.
> 
> Written for llikultra

 

 

 

 

Joe sometimes looks around at his life, like on days when David is in his dressing room, explaining the intricacies of the 7th Doctor while wearing no pants and a shirt half off, a script for some indie movie in his hand--annotated with what looks like crayon--and he hears himself say "Yeah, but Daleks were the badassest badasses of all time, dude," and he actually not only understands what he just said but is ready to defend his position that Daleks Are Better Than Klingons to the death, that he realizes his drug-filled youth as part of NYC's Pretty People are long behind him. And, in fact, he really prefers the laidback, easy kind of grown-up debauchery he gets up to now.

"Karaoke?" Torri's head pops into the open dressing room door. Her hair's wet from washing out the product and her smile's the switchblade sharp one that's all her and _so_ not Elizabeth Weir.

"No show tunes!" David yanks his shirt all the way off.

Joe thinks about saying no--he thinks about it for the split second it takes for Torri's eyes to light on his face and her lip to curve up even more. He never was going to say no.

"Yeah, sure." Torri is the kind of girl Joe never could say no to.

*

Joe first met Torri when she was in her civvies, tight jeans and hair in her eyes, a "Some Girls" t-shirt and boots. His mouth fell open when he first saw her in costume.

"Mom pants, I know," she said, looking wry, self-deprecating, and Je had laughed.

In the car on the way to karaoke, Joe's in his de rigueur jeans and striped oxford and blazer. Torri's driving across the water from West Van to the city proper; she's in jeans cut so low he can see her waist where her shirt's ridden up. They've compromised on their on-going music war by listening to CBC Radio One, some pseudo-news show where they interview real news figures interposed with people who train bats and teach dogs to sing scales.

"You going to get really shit-faced and pick a fight tonight?" Torri pops the car into reverse to back into her parking spot in the condo lot. They taxi to bars, never drive. Canadian cops are a lot more loose about DUI, but it's their careers on the line. Joe's pretty sure the tabloids don't give a shit about them, but some things aren't worth it.

Joe's never instigated a fight in his life, but hope seems to bloom eternal in Torri that he might. "David could kick my ass."

She pops her car door open laughing. "He wishes, old man."

*

David brings fish and chips for everyone, flakey white fish and soggy, homemade fries with the skins on. When he leans over Joe to tap on the laminated karaoke songlist, his shirt smells vaguely of dog and his sigh is classically put-upon David. "Why do we have to frequent such a _gay_ karaoke place?"

"Trying to be sensitive to your needs, Davey." Paul downs half his beer in one drink and lifts a smirking eyebrow at David.

"Is that a proposition, Paulie?" David waves the songlist at Paul as they start picking fries off the same piece of greasy newspaper, the smell of malt vinegar from their corner of the table strong enough to make Joe's mouth involuntarily water.

Torri pops a cigarette into her mouth and says around it, "You going to sing tonight?"

"Hell no." Joe sucks down half his scotch and waves at Barry The Guy Who Wears No Shirt.

Torri's phone vibes and Joe can feel it where her thigh is pressed against his. He looks down at it by reflex, but she's already moving out of the booth, the phone propped to her ear. She fiddles with her lighter as she weaves through the crowd to the front door. Because of her dark purple leather jacket, glimpses of her are visible until she bangs open the door to step outside .

Jason's late or not coming. He forgets to call sometimes. He'd forget to breathe if it wasn't a reflex.

The scene in Vancouver is pretty close-knit. If you spend enough time working in BC, you get to know everyone. Torri's been working on and off in Vancouver for more than a decade, longer than Joe's even been in the business. Joe is never really surprised when she knows everyone. He is sometimes surprised by how big of a spaz David is, though.

"Chief!" David hops up from the table and almost bowls Paul over in his enthusiasm when Torri saunters back up to them with Aaron Douglas in tow.

Aaron's a great guy, funny as hell, good-natured. He sticks out his hand. "Joe." He grips Joe's hand when Joe stands to give a decent shake and a big smile.

"Aaron."

"Dude, seriously," David starts when Aaron settles in a chair he nicks with his leg from the next table over.

"You're getting nothing from me." Aaron drinks the rest of David's beer and they lean down with Paul to share trade secrets.

Torri smooshes back into the booth next to him smelling like outdoors and tobacco. She slides another scotch in front of him and drinks from a glass he knows contains Jack and soda.

Joe likes Aaron just fine, but the guy pings him wrong sometimes. Joe's pretty sure Aaron and Torri aren't just strictly friends.

Aaron and David sing a duet of "Me and My Shadow," no one really paying much attention to their antics, all the boys and men in the place too pretty and too inclined to cruising to bother with the two chubby 30-something men cracking each other up and clearly already together. That's Joe's own personal back story over why no one ever gets hit on in here but Paul and Jason. Joe's willing to admit he's gotten too old to pull twinkie boys in glitter unless they're looking for a sugar daddy. Not that he's inclined that way, but it's an ego thing.

Torri's pressed into his side from shoulder to hip, his arm along the back of the booth and her nestled into him in a way that's singularly unplatonic.

"Come outside with me while I smoke?" Torri sound off-handed, bored. Joe looks down at Torri's upturned face. He's had enough to drink to blame his yes on that, but they both know that's not his style.

"Sure." She slides out of the booth and he trails along. Paul's sitting with some guys who all look just like him, and not even with the group anymore. David and Aaron will probably shut down the bar and barely notice Joe and Torri are gone.

Outside, it's foggy and humid, every breath a tiny struggle. Torri's fingers on the small of his back, under his blazer and shirt, press down into his pants to rub over the dimples low down on either side of his tailbone, sharp like sticks.

She has a cab company on speed dial; they lean their hips against the side of a SUV facing each other as they wait on their ride. He slouches, watches her smoke, waits for her to lean in or pretend they aren't doing this until they get into her condo, waiting for her to lead. Always waiting for her to lead.

That's what they do and that's how Joe likes it.

She flicks her cigarette between her thumb and forefinger, and he watches it arc through the fog, the orange ember sailing away from them as she steps up to him. She presses a knee between his and presses her mouth to the front of his neck where his shirt's open.

*

Joe has a job. His job is to pretend to be John Sheppard, USAF pilot and denizen of another galaxy (most of the time). This is Joe's _job_. He once fancied himself an actor, but he was disabused of that idea pretty rapidly upon coming to work on _Atlantis_. For one, he met David. David might have done other things in his life, but he's an artist; it's who he is _is_ , not what he does. Joe learned the difference pretty fast.

Torri, she's also an actor in the way Joe would never call himself, but she's not an artist like David--she's more of a person who once thought of herself that way, once a long time ago, and is now the sort of woman who dances to her own tune. Acting lets her be free-spirited, bohemian, unencumbered. Most of those are things Joe's never been, and never really wanted to be, either. Joe is good at living vicariously.

Yes, Joe fights to get his hands on scripts, to write and direct, but it's more for the challenge than because of some deep burning in his soul. Joe's not sure what soul-burning would feel like, but he's pretty sure he's never experienced it.

Joe likes some security in his life. Or he's used to security anyway. He likes to know there's money sitting somewhere waiting on him in case of an emergency. He likes being able to windsurf and parasail and race motorcycles and skateboard through the "hallways" of his "office." He's also known for a long time those activities stand in for the kind of risk he's never taken, will never take. He has his family and his family's expectations, and the acting thing was already enough of a risqué leap.

Joe talks to Kat on the phone most nights, about her newest art projects and what she's reading, where she's been and what she's seen. It's all very safe, relaxed, comfortable. The boys smear peanut butter on the receiver and Kat scolds them; Joe does funny voices and tells them he loves them. She never calls him; he always calls her at the appointed time. She doesn't like surprises, and Joe doesn't want to rock the boat.

*

The foyer in Torri's condo is wallpapered, literally, with playbills from stage shows. Real ones, not rubberized knock-offs. He's never asked her, but he figures she did it herself. There are Egyptian animal statues cluttering a wide shelf she always puts her keys on, their bodies turquoise and gold leaf, totems of something else he's never inquired about.

Tonight, Joe's jostled and passed around from arms to arms, hand to hand, as he makes his way from the foyer to the kitchen. People are packed in every available space indoors, and flow out the open French doors to the patio where Torri has one of those Mexican outdoor fireplaces that are probably illegal (like everything else) in Vancouver. David has Jane with him, and he watches her with that fond look he usually reserves for cheese dip and his inflatable Dalek. Jane seems to love David for his flaws instead of in spite of them, and Joe loves her a little himself for being that kind of person.

The entire pass-through from the kitchen has become a bar, and a girl Joe sort of recognizes is mixing drinks. He can't hear what she says over the screeching angry-girl music blasting through the sound-system. He points at the bottle of Dewars and mimes drinking. Through the hole in the wall, Torri catches his eye. She's leaning against the center island of the kitchen drinking Jack with a piece of lemon in it. Her tank top has rivets around the neck and armholes. Her skirt is leather or some facsimile of such. He can see the bare stretch of her thigh and it looks like she's standing in a ballet position, with her leg cocked out.

The girl tending bar presses a cup into his hand and smiles up at him. She's cute, blonde, Rodney's type. Not David's type. Not Joe's type at all. The type of woman Joe goes for doesn't smile guilelessly like that, doesn't make anyone a drink without being asked or intending something by it. Even if it's her own party.

Jason echoes from nearby, broad voice and deep laughter that can rattle dishes in a cabinet.

Jason is young. There's really not much else to be said about that. Sometimes Joe listens to him talk and wonders if he was ever that naïve. It's doubtful considering Joe's up-bringing, the eggshells he learned to balance on, the unspoken everything in his family. He was always hovering around fifty, even before he left for college and found out what being old really meant.

Jason's at Joe's elbow following his line of sight. "She's like the tide, bra, flow with it and it might drown you. Fight it and definitely die. Better to stay on shore."

Jason's high. He also is maybe a little too insightful and loud-mouthed about the situation considering. Considering everything and nothing.

Joe just looks up at him and sips his drink, jerks his chin towards the blonde girl making drinks. "Your type?"

Jason smiles at the chick and she laughs out loud. "Smooth." Jason winks at him. "Stoli and orange juice, baby." His hair is tied back with some kind of pink ribbon and he's wearing his glasses. Jason is naturally the sort of person a lot of other people attempt to be all their lives and fail. Joe leaves him with blonde girl, comfortable in his assumption that the girl will go home flattered and ebullient and Jason will pass out in Torri's basement playing Tony Hawk video games.

*

When Joe first started college, he made an off-hand remark to his roommate about his nanny. Micah had looked up at him with his eyebrows up and said, "Nanny?"

Joe recognized in that moment he'd slipped into some cultural dissonance. Yes, Joe had a nanny, and everyone he'd grown up with had a nanny. Parents had things to do, commitments, careers and charities and parties to plan.

"Yeah" was all he said about it. He remembered from then on never to mention Sarah to people out of his native social dynamic.

Joe and Kat have a nanny now. Sometimes David makes jokes about Joe "banging the nanny." David doesn't really understand the kind of faux pas he's making, so Joe doesn't get offended by it.

*

Rachel and Jane are wedged into the couch on either side of David; he's pressed into the cushions with his arms stretched out along the back and them talking intensely over his lap. Rachel doesn't like parties, doesn't like large groups. She's shy in that way that some performers are--using public acts of humiliation as a crutch for their insecurity. Her hair is in her face, one hand resting on top of Jane's hand on David's leg as she tells a story that Jane clearly finds riveting. Joe doesn't try to box those three up; they aren't the sort of people he knows well. Aside from being in the art scene, they are Canadian, and he's figured out through trial and error that his assumptions about "Canadians" tend to be wrong, completely wrong. He first started reassessing his ingrained Canadian prejudices from constant exposure to the inner workings of David's unfiltered mind. The guy is not polite, reserved, or nonjudgmental, and that is an _understatement._

Joe finishes his drink and steers clear of the whole Deep Conversation Vortex.

*

Joe was supposed to go to law school. There were "consequences" for him not attending. The kind of consequences that explain why his wife lives in L.A. and is a lady who lunches while Joe lives in North Van and spends the majority of his leisure time hiking and camping or skiing and paragliding and drinking with his co-workers.

Joe's grandmother didn't think that _writing_ for _magazines_ was a very suitable career. She made sure his trust fund was tied to some key "life goals."

He sometimes feels a small victory in becoming something _worse_ than a writer.

Sometimes the victory feels pyrrhic.

*

Torri smokes on the deck, lounging back on the cedar bench, taking up way more space than her tiny frame ought to be able to. Joe peeks out from the French doors and thinks about steering clear, but she laughs at him, laughs and says, "Furtive looks good on you," and he's a goner.

Joe steps out of the bright bubble of laughter and tinkling glass. David's voice spirals up behind him, words like "intrinsically" and "unabashedly" and "UNIX" wrapping around Joe's pant legs and tugging at him with tiny barbs of knowledge.

He finishes his scotch and sets the glass on the teak table he can see outlined in the darkness. Torri is just a flash of light grey, her exposed skin reflecting the miniscule moonlight in the Vancouver night. The cedar is warm under him when he sits, from the radiating heat of the outdoor fireplace.

Torri presses her glass into his hand and bumps it towards his face. He drinks it reflexively, smiling around the brim at all the memories that action draws up. New York in the early nineties, raves and warehouse parties and alcohol poured down his throat by impossibly beautiful people who always thought he was uptight, reserved, shy. Torri knows him, knows the truth is closer to numb and indifferent. The Jack and lemon tastes like lemon wood cleaner. The glass is almost full, and he drinks it until the ice clicks against his front teeth.

Fingers twist in his hair where it's longest on the crown of his head. Torri twists to slide a leg over his lap and press herself into him all along his side, his right arm pinned between them in a comfortable way.

"You're such an old man." She laughs into his ear. Her teeth scrape his earlobe as he joins her laughter at the truth of what she said. She catches stubble on his jawline with her thumbnail, over and over scraping the same couple hairs until Joe is more focused on that than her knee pressed into his erection. Her lips, thick with lip gloss, skim behind his ear, along his hairline, and her thumb moves back and forth back and forth, and he's not thinking anymore, just in this _very second_ , alive and connected and untroubled.

*

Some people in the industry complain about the integration of the public images of the talent with the marketing strategy of the corporation. Joe's always seen the necessity of talking points and The Message. He's lived with that formula all his life.

He began with "Mom and Dad Are Happy" and moved on to "There Are Things Best Left Unsaid" and eventually graduated to "No One Ever Said Life Was Fair."

*

Torri is all fingernails and bite marks, unrestrained and filthy, babbling out the sort of sex talk Joe only associates with porn and embellished stories from unreliable sources.

"Make me remember this for a week." She slithers around him, biting at his bottom lip and pressing against the small of his back with her bony heel as he fucks her on the countertop in her en suite bathroom. He shifts and bears down to get a hand over her mouth. He closes his eyes and presses his face into her neck and shoulder to keep from _seeing_ to keep from _hearing_. It's easier to feel her and smell her and pretend like she's any woman anywhere, casual and simple.

She laughs against his palm, twists his hair around her finger and squeezes around him rhythmically. He can't pretend she's anyone other than who she is.

His thighs tremble and he pulls his hand away from her face to let her slide her tongue between his lips, push his words back into his mouth. He's alive and aware as he moves inside her; she's everywhere, wrapped around him, bigger than the small, insignificant life he has.

Being hyperaware and awake to life can be a double-edged sword, he knows, because this feels like fire in his nerve-endings and burning low in his belly.

*

Joe does what he can to not think too deeply about life, the universe, and everything. That way lies madness and regret and longing after things that can never be. His life is what it is, and it's comfortable and safe and full of unexpected pleasure. Like David with his guitar singing The Tragically Hip while Joe watches TSN on mute.

"You are a-head by a cent-ur-y," David sings and Joe listens to him bang on the body of his guitar with the heel of his hand to improvise percussion. "No dress rehearsal, this is our lives."

Joe doesn't even look up from the basketball highlights. "That's pretty heavy-handed, even for you."

"Yeah, well, you play obtuse so well, I thought I'd go for the direct approach."

"Did you just compliment my acting?" Joe polishes off his Kokanee and groans when Kobe sinks the three-pointer.

"Yes, but you need to stop hitting your cues so well in real life, man. I've never known someone more in need of a real life fourth wall destruction." David's being sincere, but Joe's a little tired of metaphors.

Then David picks out a couple more cords and starts up a song Joe doesn't know.

 

 

 


End file.
